Mr. Bernanke’s remarks follow last month’s decision to launch a third round of asset purchases, a policy tool known as quantitative easing, or QE. On Monday, Mr. Bernanke sought to debunk two charges: that low interest rates enable bad fiscal policy by making it cheap for the federal government to borrow, and that the Fed has “monetized the debt” by engaging in securities purchases and will eventually cause higher inflation.

“While I understand the Fed’s reasoning behind QE1 and QE2, I strongly believe we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns. In the meantime, the Fed’s easy money policies are taking pressure off Congress to address our fiscal problems, something that Chairman Bernanke and every economist agrees must happen to prevent a crisis. Unfortunately, Congress only seems to act when under pressure to do so, and the longer we wait to implement fiscal reform, the more difficult it will be to achieve.”

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